


we're circles, we begin again

by softeldritch



Series: prompt fills [5]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Androids, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Unrequited Love, Winnipeg Jets, mentions of suicidal thoughts?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20658308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softeldritch/pseuds/softeldritch
Summary: soulmates au + unrequited love + “it’s just so hard not to fall in love with you.”





	we're circles, we begin again

**Author's Note:**

> requested on [tumblr](https://soft-eldritch.tumblr.com/post/187745354993/in-a-mood-so-13520-for-patria-and-nikolaj)
> 
> (title from _don’t want it back_ by sabrina carpenter)

When Patrik first meets Nikolaj, he only has a few days worth of memories. 

The first thing he knows is opening his eyes to a stark white ceiling, wires plugged into the port at the back of his neck. Faces he still doesn’t recognize are crying over him (and later, Patrik keeps trying to explain to himself why the sight filled him with such unreserved rage). The crying ones are saying his name, saying how happy they are to have him back, and the two people dressed purely in white are saying everything’s perfectly functional. Patrik’s pissed and he doesn’t even know why. He storms out of the room then, pushing past soft, fragile human bodies, walking faster when they followed, breaking into a run when they called for security.

He runs out of the building onto a rainy street lit by bright neon, wet metal cold and slippery against the synthetic skin at the soles of his bare feet. For a second he stands in the rain, each raindrop cold on his skin and soaking through his thin, papery clothing. It’s easy to outrun the people following him when they burst out of the doors; he’s an android, top of the line, and even the most athletic people can’t measure up.

A few days and some stolen credits later, he finds himself in a shipyard on the darker, grittier side of town. The ship that catches his eye is, frankly, a piece of shit. The hum of the engine has a few misplaced clicks, and the protective outer hull has clearly been wrecked and repaired more than a few times. For some reason Patrik knows everything wrong with it at a glance. 

But the patchwork metal has a certain charm, and the tall, narrow man lounging on the ramp leading up into the ship catches his eye with a grin.

“You lookin’ to go somewhere, synth?” It’s said with a smile, and his hands glint with metal in the bright streetlights, so Patrik’s pretty sure the word isn’t supposed to be offensive. Considering he’s only been an android for a few days, he probably wouldn’t know anyway.

“Depends,” Patrik says, “how much are you charging for a ride in a ship with a dysfunctional quantum coil?”

The man—Kyle, Patrik learns shortly—grins even wider.

Patrik doesn’t know much. His mind is filled with knowledge on ships and a dozen memorized bank account numbers and the sight of pale-haired people with red faces and tears streaming down their cheeks. His life experience is pretty much negligible, if he’s even alive at all.

But he steps into the cargo bay of the ship—the Red River—and sees a young man with gaunt cheeks and strong, narrow shoulders. Suddenly Patrik’s bank of knowledge increases by one single fact:

His power core might be made up of metal and silicon polymers and a miniature fusion reactor, but it makes a pretty close approximation of a skipping heartbeat.

Patrik turns to ask Kyle the man’s name, but Kyle has already drifted to talk to someone else passing by the loading ramp of the ship. So Patrik turns back, watching the man as he hefts a few unmarked black crates out of the way. He’s only wearing a thin shirt, and Patrik’s eyes catch on the shift of his shoulder blades beneath the fabric.

Patrik has nanofluid instead of blood, so he doesn’t blush when the guy straightens up and glances in his direction to catch him staring. 

His blue eyes linger over Patrik’s face; it’s almost like he’s searching for something. Apparently he doesn’t find it, because a few seconds later he’s turning back to the crates, a dragging slowness to the way he moves.

“That’s Nikolaj,” Kyle tells him. His wiry metal hand pats Patrik’s shoulder. “Don’t mind him.”

“I can hear you, KC.” Nikolaj’s voice is a low drawl. He straightens out again, turning to narrow his ridiculously pretty blue eyes in Kyle’s direction. His tone’s sardonic, his eyebrows raised like they’re sharing a joke—but something about the set of his mouth makes Patrik think the humour’s shallower than he’s letting on.

Then again, Patrik doesn’t know much. Just that if what he’s got counts as a heart, it’s uncomfortably tight.

* * *

So, a few things happen. A reward gets sent out for Patrik’s safe return, by the same pale-haired people who were crying when he first opened his eyes. They’re his family, apparently, and they desperately want their son back. Patrik’s not sure how much truth there is in that—he still remembers nothing before the white ceiling and the tears—but he does know there’s a painful pang in his chest whenever he thinks about going back there.

Not that it matters, because he’s never going back again. He’s found a place on the Red River.

She needed an engineer with actual skill, and Patrik figures he might as well put all the shit in his head to good use. He spends most of his time in her engine room, configuring the engines and making sure she’s running as smooth as a barely cobbled-together smuggling ship can be. Usually he only has the hum of the ship and the blinking lights of her drive core for company.

Patrik doesn’t always mind being alone. He does sometimes wish he ate, so he could join the rest of the crew during their warm, bright dinners.

“You could come up,” Nikolaj says once, while Patrik’s on his back fiddling with one of the delicate parts of the whirring engine. Every so often Nikolaj comes to sit in the engine room; sometimes he talks, sometimes he doesn’t. Patrik appreciates the company either way.

(“I used to come down here sometimes when it was just Mark running the engines,” Nikolaj’d said once, blue eyes locked on the soft glow of the engine’s core. “It’s nice and quiet.”

“Keep coming down,” Patrik had told him, blue eyes locked on the slope of his nose and the sharpness of his cheekbones. “I can be quiet too.”

Nikolaj had smiled at him, slow and a little bit sad, and started visiting more often.)

Patrik shrugs, shoulders dragging on the rolling pallet beneath him. “Maybe.”

“It wouldn’t be weird, or anything,” Nikolaj says. Something squeaks from his direction, rubber on metal, and Patrik glances over to see he’s scuffing the toe of his boots against the floor. Nikolaj gets fidgety if he’s in one place too long. 

It’s charming, because Patrik doesn’t understand the feeling at all. He could sit still and quiet for hours, if he wanted. 

“Even if you’re not eating,” Nikolaj continues, “I—we like having you around.” His laugh is low and almost monotone, and Patrik’s approximation of a heart clenches. “I mean, we wouldn’t let you on the ship otherwise. Blake’s pretty selective about his crew.” His footsteps pad softly across the room. He nudges his toe against Patrik’s thigh; it’s the highest part sticking out from under the engine. “C’mon. Come to dinner.”

“I should probably make sure this ship doesn’t fall apart first.” Patrik bends his legs and wheels himself out from beneath the engine. Nikolaj’s standing over him, mouth set in a thin line, and Patrik grins at him. “I’ll come up in ten minutes.”

Nikolaj grins back. He always seems small when he smiles, a bit unsure. It’s weird, because Nikolaj has one of those faces that’d split into a wide grin so easily, but Patrik has still never seen it.

“I’ll wait here,” Nikolaj says. “So your dumb ass doesn’t forget.”

Patrik narrows his eyes. “My brain is a supercomputer.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s so surprising how stupid you are.” Nikolaj raises his brows, smirking. “Remember when you forgot to recharge and we were stuck in dead space for twelve hours before you booted back up again?”

“I’m not a battery, I don’t _recharge_,” Patrik says automatically, defensively. He scowls as Nikolaj’s smirk curls wider, even as his not-heart thumps and whirs in his chest. “And I didn’t forget. I was busy.”

“Busy turning our thrusters offline, apparently.”

Patrik pushes up onto his elbows, head tipping up to keep frowning at Nikolaj’s wavering smirk. “It’s part of the diagnostic procedure.” Nikolaj just lifts his brows higher, and Patrik rolls his eyes and settles back onto the pallet. He rolls back under the engine and buries his fingers in the bundle of tiny wires revealed by the open panel. “Which you don’t know anything about, because you’re useless with machines.”

Nikolaj kicks him lightly in the thigh. Patrik feels the sharp pressure of it, the way his synthetic muscle fibers twitch instinctively at the sensory feedback. It doesn’t quite hurt, because he doesn’t process pain the way people do, but he feels it as strongly as any organic person would.

“If you’re not done in ten minutes I’m dragging you up there anyway,” Nikolaj tells him, and Patrik huffs out a laugh.

“You could try.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Patrik pushes out from under the engine again to see Nikolaj pouting at him. A grin tugs at Patrik’s mouth. His thumb itches to drag over Nikolaj’s lower lip, smooth out the edge of that frown. “I’m a lot stronger than you.” He traces his gaze over Nikolaj’s body. “I probably would be even if I wasn’t an android.” It’s not that Nikolaj is weak, but he’s a lot . . . smaller than Patrik is.

“Shut up,” Nikolaj snaps, a grin fighting through the exaggerated curve of his scowl. “Ten minutes, or I’ll—unplug you, or something.”

Laughing, Patrik rolls himself back under the engine. “I’m wireless, baby.”

He gets back to work, and the silence falls again. Patrik wonders if Nikolaj’s still fighting back a smile, if he’s let it out now that Patrik can’t see it—or if it’s faded into a tired, closed expression like it always does.

Patrik hopes it hasn’t. He never knows what to say.

* * *

“Hey, Patty,” Nikolaj says one day, his voice hesitant.

Patrik’s gaze flicks away from the window of the so-called observation deck—more of a dimly lit room with a well-stocked bar, a small lounge area, and a window that’s slightly bigger than all the rest—to land on Nikolaj’s face. Nikolaj isn’t looking at him, still staring at the scattering of stars. The soft, dark lighting makes him look eerie and sad, casting strange shadows over the sharp angles of his face. He’d been in here when Patrik came in, and didn’t say anything when Patrik sat down near him to watch the stars.

Patrik wants to drape his arm around Nikolaj’s slim shoulders, pull him into the false warmth of Patrik’s side. He keeps his hands in his lap. “Yeah?” 

Nikolaj’s shoulders lift as he breathes in slowly. “Do androids have soulmates?”

The question catches him off guard, and Patrik spends a second just staring at the dark circles under Nikolaj’s eyes. He knows what soulmates are. Everyone knows what soulmates are. They’re rare, especially with the human race spread across a galaxy, but every so often people are born with feelings that don’t belong to them, dreams that aren’t theirs. A tug pulling them in some distant direction.

Sometimes Patrik doesn’t even know whether he has actual feelings, or just code. Whether it makes a difference anyway since the human brain is really just a living computer. What he does know is that he doesn’t have a soulmate.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. It’s not like he knows any other androids he could ask. He’s a pretty rare commodity this far out of the inner region. “I don’t have one.”

Nikolaj nods. His eyes drop to his lap, fingers twisting. “Do you ever wish you did?”

Huh. It’s not something Patrik’s ever given any thought to. He’s only existed for a few months, as far as he knows, whether or not he was anybody before being _this_. He takes a second to contemplate it now; what it would be like to feel a distant heartbeat echoing in his chest, to know another person with thoughts and emotions and dreams is out there waiting. To have something stronger than gravity pulling him, instead of drifting around searching for vague, nameless purpose. 

A familiar, aching loneliness resurfaces in Patrik’s chest. It’d be nice, he thinks, to have a soulmate. Maybe then he’d be able to tell if he’s really a person or not.

He doesn’t say that to Nikolaj. It’s a heavy weight even on Patrik shoulders, and his are a lot stronger.

Instead, he just says, “yeah, maybe.” 

Nikolaj nods again. He doesn’t say anything.

Patrik stares at his mouth, the soft curve of it. “Why’d you ask?”

Shrugging, Nikolaj leans heavily against the back of the couch. His shoulders hunch in and suddenly he’s taking up even less space, so curled into himself he barely looks like he’s there at all. “I just wanted—no, nevermind.” He huffs. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway?”

“I wanted to know if you’d, y’know, get it. I don’t know anyone else with a soulmate.” His skin is pale in the starlight, his fingers curled into tight, trembling fists on his thighs. When he glances up at Patrik, his eyes are huge and dark in the dim light. He looks very, _very_ young. “Sometimes I kinda wish I never had one either.”

The way he says it goes off like an alarm in Patrik’s brain. The use of past tense. “I . . .” He swallows, though he technically doesn’t need to. “I’m sorry.” 

Nikolaj shakes his head. “No, it’s.” He’s looking somewhere beyond Patrik’s head, jaw clenching. “Don’t worry about it.” Very suddenly he stands up, almost fast enough that Patrik startles. He climbs over the back of the couch, heading towards the little bar in the corner. Patrik watches the way his hands move, deft and practiced as he pours himself a drink. 

He’s got nice hands. Slender, but still strong. Like the rest of him.

Nikolaj tosses the drink back, throat bobbing as he swallows. Patrik stares at that too, ignoring the fusion reactor humming louder, hotter in his chest. Then Nikolaj puts the glass back on the bar with a clink, and fixes Patrik with a gaze that’d be heartbreaking if Patrik had a heart. “Talk to me about something else,” he says, his soft voice carrying easily in the silence of the room. “Please.”

Patrik still doesn’t know much. He knows now how to spacewalk through a wreck looking for loot, and how to subtly swindle someone out of all their money. Aside from that, the only thing in his mind is ships and engines and the inner mechanisms of a drive core. He doesn’t have much to talk about.

He starts explaining the intricacies of quantum mechanics, because he’s already rambled enough to Nikolaj about ships and engines. Patrik has a lot of knowledge that doesn’t really have a source, just starts pouring out of him when he opens the floodgates, and his simulation of a brain processes certain things so quickly it’s a little disorienting. 

Patrik talks, spilling out sentences he doesn’t understand until he’s said them, and Nikolaj curls up in the corner of the couch and watches him with a tired expression. He interrupts a few times to ask questions, though less and less as he slowly nurses a bottle of whiskey.

Part of Patrik wants to take the bottle, gently pry Nikolaj’s fingers from the stem. He wonders if Nikolaj drinks like this on the days he doesn’t come down to Patrik’s engine room or up to eat with the crew.

But he’s not Nikolaj’s—well, anything, really. They’re probably not even really friends.

So he just keeps talking, lowering his voice as Nikolaj’s head slumps against the back of the couch and his eyes flutter shut. Then, when Nikolaj’s breathing slows and evens out, Patrik drifts into silence. For a while he stares at the slow expansion of Nikolaj’s chest, the way starlight highlights the hollow of his cheek. Not for the first time, Patrik wonders if Nikolaj’s getting enough to eat.

Patrik puts the half-empty bottle back behind the bar. His fingers twitch when he returns to Nikolaj and he imagines burying them in Nikolaj’s hair, trailing fingertips over his scalp. Instead, he wraps an arm around Nikolaj’s shoulder and hooks the other under the crook of his knees, lifting him off the couch easily.

Nikolaj stirs but doesn’t wake, murmurs a noise as his brows crease. Patrik stops breathing and doesn’t bother to start back up again.

He carries Nikolaj through the quiet, dark silence of the ship back to his room. Everybody is asleep by now, running on the simulated day-night cycle, so Patrik doesn’t have to worry about anyone seeing them. That’d probably invite a lot of questions that Patrik’s not prepared to answer just yet.

When Patrik steps into Nikolaj’s room and settles him gently on the bed, Nikolaj wiggles onto his side and curls up, pressing his cheek into the pillow. He’s still asleep, though, and Patrik turns around to head back out the door before can do something really stupid like pet Nikolaj’s hair, or touch his cheekbones, or—

“Patty?” His voice is low and quiet.

Patrik stops. “Yeah?”

“Can you . . .” A sigh slips into the quiet of the room. “Can you stay?”

Fuck.

“Of—of course,” Patrik manages. He turns back, sitting on Nikolaj’s bed near his feet, where he’s not in danger of reaching out and being an idiot by dragging his fingers over Nikolaj’s scalp. 

Nikolaj stares at him. He looks exhausted. He _always_ looks exhausted. Every time Patrik sees him he wants to bully him back into bed, hold him down and wait for him to fall asleep so maybe the dark circles under his eyes will finally disappear and he’ll stop looking so heartbroken whenever he thinks nobody is watching.

He’s pretty sure Nikolaj would either deck him or burst into tears if he tried.

“I never actually met my soulmate,” Nikolaj says, as though he’s answering a question Patrik never asked. “Never even got to talk to them.”

Patrik isn’t sure what to say. The darkness of the room seems oppressive, the walls pressing close and suffocating, even though he doesn’t need to breathe. “You can talk to me,” he says. “About your soulmate. If you want.”

Honestly, he doesn’t _want_ to hear Nikolaj talk about having a soulmate. Even the idea of that hurts in a new way, something sharp and ugly surging up against his false metal ribcage. But if that’s what Nikolaj wants—

“I guess.” Nikolaj laughs humourlessly. “You’re the only one who doesn’t know the story, after all.” 

Patrik stays silent.

“They died a few weeks before you showed up,” he says, and the image of Nikolaj’s blank face, the day Patrik had stepped into the cargo bay of the Red River, flashes through Patrik’s mind. His chest constricts, a vague, ill feeling swelling up the back of his throat. “But . . . I think they were dying for a long time before that. I think they were sick, or something.” Nikolaj shifts, curling into himself even tighter, knees pressed to his chest. “There was . . . a lot of pain. Really bad pain. And sometimes they were angry, but mostly—” He chokes on the word, eyes squeezing shut. “Mostly they just wanted to die.”

Patrik lifts his hand, hesitates. Then he swallows and curls his fingers loosely around Nikolaj’s ankle; hopefully Nikolaj understands, because he doesn’t know how else to approach this.

“And the thing about soulmates—” Nikolaj’s face twists tighter, chin wobbling. “The thing about soulmates is you share feelings, so for fucking _months_ I kinda wanted—”

His mouth snaps shut. He drags a hand over his eyes and keeps it there, and Patrik pretends not to notice the tiny tremors in his shoulders, or the quiet, muffled sobs filling the silence. 

* * *

Sometimes, Nikolaj is bright and bubbly and reckless, and all those soft, sad parts of him fade to the background. He’ll start wrestling matches with Kyle or pick a fight with some gritty planet’s cops just so he can go sprinting through the streets with them on his heels, hand tight around Patrik’s wrist. They’ll go careening through crowds, shoving angry people out of the way, and when they eventually collapse in an empty alleyway Nikolaj falls against Patrik and they laugh until Nikolaj’s almost crying.

“We should include you in shit more often,” Nikolaj says once, after they’ve pickpocketed a ridiculously expensive gun from someone who clearly didn’t know how to use it. He’s gasping through laughter, twirling the gun with nimble fingers, grinning up at Patrik. “You’re good at this.”

Patrik raises his brows. “Well, duh.”

Nikolaj grins wider, and rests his forehead against Patrik’s shoulder while he catches his breath. Patrik only barely manages not to wrap his arms around Nikolaj’s narrow waist and lift him off his feet.

(Once, Patrik tugs Nikolaj into an abandoned, narrow alleyway and shoves him up against the wall, clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle his surprised shout. Patrik crowds against him, angling his body so anybody looking in from the mouth of the alley would just see a couple getting a bit too friendly. He listens for the storming of boots past their alley, tension aching in his shoulders until the noises fade.

Then he glances back at Nikolaj, seeing wide eyes and Nikolaj’s chest heaving as he struggles to breathe around Patrik’s hand. Fuck, he wants—

He stumbles away, tearing his hand away from Nikolaj’s mouth. Nikolaj gasps down air, still pressed into the wall like Patrik’s a solid line up his front, and Patrik’s so fucking tempted to step back into that space, make Nikolaj lose his breath even more.

“Good idea,” Nikolaj pants, mouth tugging into a wide grin. “We’ll have to remember that one.”

Patrik has never wanted anything so much, or so desperately. He manages to grin back, even though every wire in his body feels like it’s sparking, like the metal and silicon forming his bones and flesh and muscle are melting from the inside out. All he can think about is shoving Nikolaj against that wall again, maybe curling fingers into his hair and tugging until Nikolaj bares his throat.

He keeps his distance for a little while after that.)

It’s not always like that, though. Patrik doesn’t know what losing a soulmate is like—doesn’t really know loss at all—but on Nikolaj it seems like a slow process. Two steps forward, one step back. Some days he’s loud and giddy laughter, some days he’s a quiet, easy smile. 

A lot of days, though, he’s quiet and reserved. Sometimes he doesn’t leave his room at all.

On bad days, Patrik brings food to Nikolaj’s room, in hopes that he’ll at least eat some of it. On good days, Patrik falls into orbit around Nikolaj like there’s a gravitational pull. Nikolaj’s smile kickstarts his systems like a shock of electricity—worse, actually, because Patrik’s shockproof, but whoever built him didn’t give him any protection against the stupid look on Nikolaj’s face when he laughs.

But the thing about Nikolaj is that even on good days, he’s reckless and stupid. He comes stumbling back from a job once with a gunshot wound in his thigh and a broken nose, trying to assure everyone he’s fine.

Patrik finds him while he’s getting patched up in the med room and yells at him. He barely remembers what he says. Something about Nikolaj being stupid, being reckless, barely valuing his own life anymore. That last one’s a sting—he _knows_ that, he wants it to hurt—and Nikolaj stops yelling back as soon as it’s out of Patrik’s mouth. He just looks away from Patrik, staring stubbornly at the far wall with his jaw set.

“Fine,” Patrik growls. “Fuck you too.”

He storms out, and regrets it about five seconds later.

That night, when everyone else is asleep, he ventures back into the dimly lit med room. His chest is tight looking at Nikolaj, curled up asleep on the white cot, looking so small with bandages around his thigh and deep bruising around his eyes. 

Patrik sits on the edge of the bed. Nikolaj shifts, and blinks his eyes open slowly.

“Sorry,” Patrik says quietly. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you.”

Nikolaj stares at him. “No,” he murmurs, gaze shuttering away, fingers curling in the bedsheets, “you’re right.” He closes his eyes, mouth twisting like he’s in pain. Vague, indistinct hurt spreads through Patrik’s core. “About me, y’know, not caring enough about my own life.”

“Niky . . .” Any other words catch in his throat.

“It’s just weird,” Nikolaj says, his voice barely more than a whisper. He barely even sounds sad, just . . . empty. “I used to think about the future all the time? Meeting my soulmate someday, having a life with them.” He shrugs, turning his face into the pillow. “Now that doesn’t matter. I don’t have anything like that anymore.”

“You have the crew,” Patrik says, because he can’t say, _you have me_.

“Yeah.” Nikolaj offers him a sad smile, and nudges Patrik’s hip with the tip of his toe. “I know that. Thanks.”

Patrik sits on the end of Nikolaj’s cot until he falls asleep again, each breath slow and even and a little bit laboured. Patrik watches him, simulated emotions whirling around in his chest, so bright and painful they feel real. “I’m sorry,” he says again, low enough not to wake Nikolaj again. “I know you can’t give me what I want. That’s fine.” He curls his hand into a fist, nails pressing into the flesh of his palm so he doesn’t give into the urge to comb his fingers through Nikolaj’s hair. “It’s just so hard not to fall in love with you.”

Nikolaj, of course, says nothing. Patrik watches for a moment longer before getting up and heading back through the silent, dark ship to the engine room, feeling like he’s the only person left in the universe.

* * *

Almost a year after first opening his eyes, Patrik finally returns to the people claiming to be his parents.

He heads to the place he assumes is their home with Blake at his side. It’s part of the job; Blake dresses up all respectable, donning government clothing and combing his hair back, and brings Patrik back to his worried family in exchange for the reward money. Then, as soon as Patrik can get himself alone without seeming suspicious, he calls in the extraction and they all leave the planet behind a few million credits richer.

Patrik’s nervous thinking about it, only managing to keep his hands from shaking by virtue of being an android. But this was his idea, and it’s a good one, and he already told Nikolaj—concerned, quiet Nikolaj, who asked if he really wanted to do this—that everything was gonna be fine.

Backing out now would feel like he’s letting everyone down.

“You ready?” Blake asks, when they’re about to ring the buzzer outside the estate.

Patrik nods. “Let’s get it over with.”

The next few minutes are a lot of crying and hugs and incomprehensible sobbing. Patrik stands still, awkwardly returns hugs when they’re given. Even after so long the sight of them crying fills him with pure, blinding anger, and he still doesn’t understand why.

After Blake’s been paid they lead Patrik into a plain, minimalist sitting room. It’s all white and pristine, sunlight shining through the perfectly clean window, illuminating the sharp edges of every piece of white and glass furniture. There’s no colour in the room at all except for the clothing Patrik’s wearing and the blue eyes of the people claiming to be his parents, and Patrik finds himself missing the patchwork collection of pillows in the Red River’s sitting room.

“We’ve missed you so much,” Patrik’s apparent mother says, dabbing at her eyes with a pure white handkerchief. It’s so . . . weird, how blotchy and red her face is in comparison to everything else. “It was a miracle that the transfer even worked, but then when we lost you _again_—” She breaks down into sobbing.

Something in Patrik twinges. “Transfer?”

“Well, yes,” his dad says. “You were so sick.”

A distant memory unfurls in Patrik’s mind as his dad keeps talking. The constant beeping of machines, silky sheets too rough on his sensitive skin. An aching soreness in every muscle and limb of his body from being bedridden so long, bruises under his arms from using crutches. Every breath being a different kind of agony as he slowly drowned and decayed and festered from the inside out.

The hopelessness of knowing he’d only last so long.

“I was dying?” It’s only half a question, half something he’s starting to know as fact. He remembers being in a series of hospital beds and the faces of his parents as they sat next to his bedside, crying every time doctors said there wasn’t anything else they could do. It was stupid, Patrik remembers thinking, that humanity could travel through space but still couldn’t fix what was wrong with him. All that fucking scientific advancement and he was getting undone by something written into his very genetics.

“Yes,” his dad says. “Nothing could be done, and we couldn’t just let you die—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Patrik says slowly. He stares at his hands; a perfect simulation of human skin, down to the little pale patches without pigment. Part of him is starting to remember what it was like, having an organic body. Needing to breathe, eat, sleep. It’s like his mind’s progressing through the entirety of the disease at an accelerated pace. He remembers getting sick, being diagnosed, dying for so long, _wanting to be dead for so long_—

And he remembers the anger, now too. Being fucking _furious_. Because all he wanted was to die, he was so fucking tired of all the experimental treatments and distant possibilities of a cure, and they wanted to make it last longer.

“No,” he says again. “No, you didn’t want to let me die, even though that’s all I wanted.” He lifts his gaze to see two pairs of blue eyes staring at him, shocked. “I told you I didn’t want this.”

“That—that was just the pain talking,” his mom stammers, eyes wide.

“So?” Patrik’s hands _are_ shaking, now. He can’t make it stop. He stands, towering over his parents. “That doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter that he wouldn’t trade what he has now for anything. It doesn’t matter that being an android let him meet the crew, let him meet _Nikolaj_. “I told you not to and you did it anyway. I _begged_ you not to do it!” 

His mom reaches out, hand trembling. “Pate—”

“_Don’t_,” Patrik snarls. Her hand withdraws. “Don’t, I—I don’t want excuses, or whatever you’re about to say.” His eyes sting, and if he could cry, he might have broken down already. 

As it is, he just turns around and storms out.

They call after him, desperate, voices breaking into tears. Patrik keeps walking, hands shaking where they’re fisted at his sides. He walks until he’s out of the house, storming down the long walkway down to the gate, core whirring hot in his chest like a wild heartbeat.

Patrik freezes as a new memory crashes through him. Laying back in another hospital bed, staring through blurred vision at another white ceiling. A hand over his own chest, fingers splayed wide. A faint, distant heartbeat that didn’t belong to him, stronger and steadier than his own, beating out against his ribcage. He used to count the beats, compare them to the shaky rhythm of his failing heart.

He thinks about Nikolaj, curled on his side in the darkness of his room, talking about living through his soulmate’s slow, painful death. 

_Mostly they just wanted to die._

Patrik almost keels over, legs shaking as he clutches at the front of his shirt. He doesn’t have a heartbeat anymore, but there’s one thudding in his chest, wild and a little bit panicked.

Fuck. He needs to get back to Nikolaj.

He sends out the signal for extraction, practically sprinting to the pickup point. The ship’s only just touching down when he gets there and Patrik climbs on easily while the cargo bay ramp is only half down, scrambling into the ship and immediately searching for Nikolaj’s face. Instead, he sees Blake’s, eyes crinkled with concern.

“Where’s Nikolaj?”

“His room,” Blake says. “Patty, what’s wrong, he—”

“Tell you later,” Patrik says, pushing past. His whole body feels like it’s trembling, like there’s a feedback loop that’s gone wrong somewhere or an ungrounded wire sending a current just beneath his skin. He climbs the stairs up to the living quarters two at a time, because all he can think about is getting to Nikolaj, following the magnetic pull in his chest drawing him in like he’s orbiting a black hole.

When he reaches Nikolaj’s door, he hesitates. From what he can feel in Nikolaj’s jumbled, confusing mess of feelings, he really doesn’t know whether he’d be welcome right now.

He raps his knuckles against the door. “Niky?”

Silence. Then a long, shuddering breath. “Go away,” Nikolaj chokes, voice breaking. Patrik’s chest constricts. “Go away, I can’t—I can’t—” His words break into a hitching sob, and Patrik can’t help himself; he slides the door open, already halfway through the threshold when Nikolaj’s head snaps up to look at him.

“Niky,” Patrik manages.

Nikolaj looks like he’s seeing a fucking _ghost_. Like he’s horrified at Patrik standing in front of him. “No,” he says, shaking his head, stumbling back a step. “No, no, this isn’t happening. This _isn’t happening_.” His legs hit the edge of the bed and he falls backwards. “My soulmate is fucking _dead_, you’re not—”

Patrik freezes. “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry.”

Tears spill over Nikolaj’s cheeks as he stares up at Patrik. He grimaces, runs both hands up his face and tugs them through his hair, shoulders hunching as he curls into himself. “I—I can’t—” His shoulders shake with sobs, and he bows forward until his forehead is pressed into his knees. He looks so small, so fragile—it hurts to look at, and it hurts in a distant, unfamiliar way, a tightness in Patrik’s chest and around his throat like he’s the one crying.

“Sorry,” he says again, before turning around and leaving Nikolaj alone.

He heads down to the engine room, because there’s nowhere else for him to really go. There’s a cot in there that Patrik never uses, but he climbs into it and curls up on his side, staring at the soft, blinking lights of the engine and the drive core. It almost reminds him of the blinking lights and soft beeping of hospital machinery keeping him alive.

With nothing else to do, he starts counting Nikolaj’s heartbeat.

* * *

Hours later, when they’ve taken off and set a course for a planet far, far away, when everyone’s gone to sleep, Patrik hears the soft pad of footsteps outside the door to the engine room. He hauls himself off his side, sits up on the edge of his bed and watches the door as it slowly creaks open.

Nikolaj steps through. Patrik’s core burns a little brighter.

Nikolaj looks . . . awful. His eyes are red and puffy like he’s been crying, his hair a mess where he’s been running his fingers through it. When he meets Patrik’s eyes he almost looks like he’s about to burst out crying and crumple to the ground. Patrik’s legs twitch, ready to push him over to catch him in case he does.

He doesn’t. Instead, he takes a few steps into Patrik’s space, stares at him with big, dark eyes—then climbs onto his lap with a knee on either side of his thighs, wrapping both arms around his shoulders. He buries his face into Patrik’s neck, the tip of his nose cold against Patrik’s synthetic skin.

Patrik almost shorts out. His arms loop tightly around Nikolaj’s waist almost instinctively.

“It’s true,” Nikolaj says quietly. He barely sounds like he’s talking to Patrik at all. “It’s actually true.” His laughter sounds like a sob, and Patrik tugs him in a little tighter. “I can feel . . . your core, or whatever. It’s . . . humming.”

Absently, Patrik taps out the steady beat of Nikolaj’s heart with one finger against Nikolaj’s ribcage. “Yeah.”

“_Fuck_.” A shudder runs through Nikolaj’s body. Wetness drips onto Patrik’s neck, slides down the slope of his shoulder. “Fuck, I don’t—I don’t know how to do this.” He shuffles even closer to Patrik, curls into him like he’s trying to burrow under Patrik’s skin. “You fucking _died_. I felt you die.” His shoulders start shaking with quiet, muffled tears, and all Patrik can do is hold him even tighter.

“I’m sorry,” Patrik says again. “I wish . . .” He doesn’t know what, really. _I wish we could have met, I wish I didn’t die, I wish you didn’t have to go through this_? None of that really _means_ anything.

He doesn’t bother saying any of it. He just presses a kiss to Nikolaj’s hair, splaying both hands wide across his back.

Minutes pass, as Nikolaj cries into Patrik’s neck, and Patrik stares at the softly gleaming lights of the drive core. Eventually Nikolaj goes quiet, still trembling in Patrik’s arms. When he pulls back his eyes are even redder, his lashes clinging together.

“I—” Nikolaj swallows, gaze flicking down from Patrik’s eyes. “I want this. You’re my soulmate.” He swallows again. “But I—I need to figure it out.” He leans forward, eyes drifting shut as he presses their foreheads together. “I still remember when you—”

Patrik rubs circles between his shoulder blades. “Whatever you need,” he says, and means it.

“You’re gonna have to be patient with me,” Nikolaj murmurs, almost a warning. “I don’t know what this is gonna be, or—or how I’ll deal with it. But I want to make this work.” He rubs his forehead against Patrik’s, a little like a cat. “I want _you_.”

“I want whatever you can give,” Patrik tells him. “Even if it’s not a lot.” If he could survive having Nikolaj just out of reach, he can handle whatever pace Nikolaj needs to move at. 

Nikolaj’s shuddery little laugh slips into the space between them. “I knew you’d say that. You’re always good to me, Patty.” He leans back slowly. Patrik’s eyes drag open to see Nikolaj’s, big and blue even in the dim lighting. There’s a soft flush climbing his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “Um. I want to try one thing, though. If that’s cool with you.”

“Go ahead.”

Nikolaj nods. “Okay.” He stares at Patrik, eyes tracing over his face; over his eyes, around the slope of his cheeks, down to his mouth. The blush darkens.

Then Nikolaj leans in and gently, carefully kisses him. Patrik’s skin buzzes with the contact. He kisses back, keeping it soft and slow. His hand slides up Nikolaj’s back, curls around the back of his neck to help angle the kiss, and Nikolaj makes a tiny, pleading noise into his mouth. Nikolaj’s warm, and his heart is thumping almost painfully hard in Patrik’s chest.

When Nikolaj pulls back, he only goes far enough to rest their foreheads together again. “Okay,” he mutters. “We can definitely do that a lot more.”

Patrik grins, massaging the burning skin at the nape of Nikolaj’s neck. “Whatever you want.”

Nikolaj worms an arm up between them and presses his palm over Patrik’s chest. Over the thrumming of his core. Patrik’s throat goes tight, breath hitching even though he doesn’t need to breathe. Nikolaj’s fingertips press into his skin. “Weird,” he murmurs.

“You’re weird,” Patrik responds, almost automatically.

Nikolaj huffs out a laugh and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> look the Make Nikolaj Sad wasn't even my fault this time!!!
> 
> [tumblr](http://soft-eldritch.tumblr.com/) // [twitter](http://twitter.com/softeldritch)


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